Mars candy bar billionaire loses drilling battle

Billionaire loses drilling battleMember of Mars candy empire has to allow access on his Montana ranch

MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Photo: LARRY MAYER, THE (MONTANA) GAZETTE

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Cattle graze on a southeastern Montana ranch, where a Wyoming company seeks to drill.

Cattle graze on a southeastern Montana ranch, where a Wyoming company seeks to drill.

Photo: LARRY MAYER, THE (MONTANA) GAZETTE

Mars candy bar billionaire loses drilling battle

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COLUMBUS, MONT. — The Mars candy empire's billions of dollars couldn't stop a state judge from ruling Tuesday that a Wyoming company can drill for natural gas beneath Forrest Mars' southeastern Montana ranch.

Drilling was expected to begin within days.

Mars had sought to block Pinnacle Gas Resources Inc. from drilling on a 10,300-acre mineral lease it holds beneath his sprawling Diamond Cross cattle ranch. But Montana law gives oil and gas companies the right to drill on private land as long as they hold valid mineral leases and meet basic notification requirements.

Forrest Mars, who is worth an estimated $14 billion, owns more than 82,000 acres along the Tongue River in Rosebud and Big Horn counties. That "surface ownership" does not include rights to much of the underground minerals, including a type of natural gas known as coal-bed methane.

"Who the surface owner is should not make any difference, and it didn't today," Pinnacle attorney Bryan Wilson said after Tuesday's ruling.

Pinnacle's lease is set to expire if the company does not begin drilling by Friday. State District Judge Blair Jones said blocking Pinnacle because it notified Mars' son-in-law of its drilling plans — rather than Mars himself — would have amounted to a "death sentence" for the company.

Mars is the former chief executive of the family candy business Mars Inc. — one of the largest privately held companies in the country. His opposition to energy development centers on the immense volumes of water such operations can consume.

Extraction of coal-bed methane requires companies to pump out millions of gallons of underground water reserves that trap the gas. In times of drought — common in Montana and across much of the arid West — ranchers and farmers depend on those reserves to water their livestock and crops.

Pinnacle had sued Mars' ranch in December after the gas company's employees were told they would be treated as trespassers if they entered the property.

On Tuesday, Jones issued an injunction that prohibits Mars and his employees from preventing access.

Mars was not in the courtroom for the ruling. He was represented by an attorney, Loren O'Toole, and son-in-law Lonnie Wright, who is married to Mars' daughter, Pamela.

Jones' ruling, Wright said, "basically opens the door for (Pinnacle) to go wherever they need to go — or wherever the want to go."

O'Toole said he will continue to press his client's case as the lawsuit unfolds but acknowledged the judge's ruling gives him little room to maneuver.

Pinnacle representative Larry Sare said the company will begin drilling an initial exploratory well "in the next couple days."

Representatives of the company had attempted to force their way onto Mars' property Monday but were turned back by Wright and other ranch employees, according to O'Toole.